Orica-GreenEdge wins Giro stage 1 TTT, Gerrans takes maglia rosa

Orica-GreenEdge has won the stage 1 team time trial at the 2015 Giro d’Italia, successfully defending its victory in the corresponding stage of last year’s race.

The Australian-registered team covered the 17.6km course in 19 minutes and 26 seconds (54.3km/h average), seven seconds ahead of Tinkoff-Saxo and another six seconds faster than Astana.

Simon Gerrans led Orica-GreenEdge across the finish line in San Remo and will wear the pink leader’s jersey into the Giro’s second stage tomorrow.

“I think technically we can be very happy. We set a really fast time, and left it all out there,” Gerrans said after the stage. “It was planned that I would be the first over the line. It’s an enormous honour to wear the maglia rosa.

“This team has built a reputation for team time trials and we have some real specialists here, so this result is a credit to them.”

How it unfolded

The 2015 Giro d’Italia began in the town of San Lorenzo al Mare on the Mediterranean coast with the riders facing an almost entirely flat time trial course. Almost all of the stage was raced on a bike track, built on land previously occupied by a local railway. Apart from a handful of tight corners in the second half of the course, the route was largely straight, forward setting the stage for some fast times.

Lampre-Merida got proceedings underway with a time of 20:25 but was soon eclipsed by Ag2r-La Mondiale, the French squad covering the course 11 seconds quicker than Lampre-Merida. When Astana crossed the finish line a short time later — lead by general classification hopeful Fabio Aru — their time would be enough to hold the lead for roughly the next hour.

Despite being without multiple-time Canadian time trial champion and last year’s first wearer of the maglia rosa, Svein Tuft, the Orica-GreenEdge riders quickly put time into their rivals.

At the intermediate time check, 9.9km into the stage, the Australian squad lead Astana by eight seconds. Much of the damage had been done by three of the team’s time trial specialists Luke Durbridge, Brett Lancaster and Michael Hepburn.

Orica-GreenEdge would extend its lead through the second half of the course, losing three of the nine riders from its paceline along the way. Simon Gerrans lead the six remaining riders across the line in San Remo — the site of Gerrans’ first Monument victory back in 2012 — ensuring he would be the first rider to wear the maglia rosa in the 2015 Giro d’Italia.

https://youtu.be/ULmm62v4CXk

The result is a nice change of fortune for Gerrans who has had a forgettable start to 2015. A crash while mountain biking in the off-season saw Gerrans break his collarbone and miss the Australian summer of racing. And in his return race, Strade Bianche, Gerrans crashed again, breaking his elbow. At Liege-Bastogne-Liege a fortnight ago — a race he won last year — Gerrans crashed twice in the space of 10 minutes, bringing his day to an unfortunate end.

Tinkoff-Saxo would go on to post the second fastest time on today’s stage 1 TTT with a spirited ride as the third-to-last team to leave the start ramp. Despite team leader and overall race favourite Alberto Contador falling slightly off the pace in the second half of his team’s effort, Tinkoff-Saxo rallied to finish just seven seconds down on Orica-GreenEdge. In the staging area Orica-GreenEdge celebrated as Tinkoff-Saxo crossed the line, despite the fact Cannondale-Garmin and FDJ.fr were still yet to complete their efforts.

The 2015 Giro d’Italia continues tomorrow with a 177km stage from Albenga to Genoa which features one small classified climb and which will almost certainly end in a bunch sprint. Simon Gerrans will be confident of defending his leader’s jersey on the stage and will be looking to spend as long in pink in possible, ideally with an individual stage win beside his name.

I think Mattew’s will take the overall lead after the sprint finish on stage 2 (if all goes well). He has a good chance to hold on through stage 3 if OGE controls the pace. Stage 4 is lumpy which is good for Matthews, but stage 5 is where it will probably all end and then we’ll see an opportunist take the jersey on a breakaway.

Nitro

Awesome result for OGE, but Porte losing 20 seconds to Bertie already – He would have been hoping for better…

Derek Maher

Dont worry Nitro,Porte and the other GC contenders will not lose any sleep.They know OGE will not be around after 2 weeks.

jules

i think he meant the time loss to Contador, not Gerro

Notso Swift

Personally I would have preferred it is Bretto had of got over the line first, the guy is the powerhouse of OGE and buries himself for the others every time. We all love Gerro, but just what I would have liked to see it since he is at a different stage of his career. (Obviously the team plan is to burn through the big engines early with Durbo, Brewly and Lancaster doing the big pulls early)

Aren’t there time bonuses this year?
I would expect the leader to change pretty soon to Matthews with the flat and if they can manage the time on the mountain of stage 4 down hill finish he would expect to be free of the pure sprinters. If Matthews can’t get over Gerro will not, so maybe Chaves or Weening

velocite

The strategy looked to be to drag Chavez into a leading position – Lancaster and Bewley did their jobs in the first half, and were not there at the end. Will be fascinating to see how far Esteban gets – recalling how well he did in last year’s ToC. (I vaguely recall!)

CB

Personally I don’t really care who gets the jersey, although I’m quite happy Gerrans got it, a great boost to the morale of a rider who could win a few stages on days when Matthews may not be present. Never hurts to boost the morale of your team leader when he’s had a horror run like he has. Also, as Gerrans said, the jersey is a victory for everyone involved, that’s what matters.

Jessy Vee

I agree, completely. Gerro’s had a horror year and the team clearly wanted to orchestrate an early stint in the jersey to boost his morale. It would have been discussed and planned.

Notso Swift

That is what I meant when I said burning off the specialists, none of the heavy duty TT guys finished with the group, although I concede Hepburn is a TT’er

velocite

It not infrequently appears to be the case in a ttt that the weaker riders drop off because they can no longer hang on. In this case it was clearly a plan, wasn’t it? So, what’s the best way to use up your big engines in the interests of a fast ttt? Could be you use half of them up completely in the first half. Don’t expect any pace setting from the smaller guys, they’ll only slow the team down – especially in a shortish tt.

Notso Swift

I think so, don’t expect anything too much from the 2 climbers and Clarke (handy climber himself) and they will be in a position to hold the Jersey for the team longer, the question is if Mattews/Gerrans can stay up front on stage 3 with the big climb in the centre
It will go by the first real mountain finish anyway I think that is 5 or 6

NAAWWWW!!!! Look at Chaves! What a cutie. What do you think? Are they trying to set him up for something? Maybe to see how high he can finish in GC, or take the jersey in a breakaway on Stage 5? Otherwise they would have burned and dropped him very early on in the TTT. It really looks like they are taking good care of him, fostering his talent and giving him opportunities that he’d be missing on other teams.

Nibbles would have left contador and froome for dead in last year’s tour, given the chance. He was head and shoulders above the rest and had the early psychological advantage. Anyway I guess we’ll never know.
If contador wins the giro it’ll be by the skin of his teeth and he’ll be lucky to get in the top five in the tour which will be dominated by quintana, froome and nibbles. Can’t wait to see the loud-mouthed contador fail.

Bracksy

Let’s discuss this again at the end of the Giro. If you end up being right, get ready to ride with a pair of new Campy Boras and SRAM electronic gearset.

a different ben

Yeah, me too, I love watching people fail! Gives me such a boost. I feel so alive!

Stompin

I was expecting a stronger performance from sky

Mike Hobbs

Italians seem to do good quality cycle paths … UK Government take note!!
Nice video from OGE.
Contador For The Win.
Best cycling website in the world.
That is all.

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